The history of the construction of the Cuban National Capitol

Abstract

In 2019, the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana (OHCH) completed the restoration of the National Capitol of Cuba. It had begun in 2010. The architectural intervention on this monument is, so far, the largest restoration project the country has ever faced, due to its size, importance and large scale. This article describes its history and construction methods, emphasising the construction and technical innovation that made it possible to complete the work in a very short time for the conditions and techniques of the time: only three years (1926 to 1929) for a building that had 13,483 m2 of construction and 26,391 m2 of parks and gardens, covering a total area of approximately 43,600 m2 [1]. The research goal is to provide information on the construction solutions and materials used to build the monument, based on the extensive graphic and photographic documentation located in the different archives in Havana, consulted by staff from the University of Alicante and the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, throughout 2010 and 2011. This made it possible to carry out a subsequent detailed study of this information. It took approximately two years to deeply understand the innovative construction of a neoclassical style building, made of reinforced concrete and iron but covered in stone, and to be able to redraw, by means of technical axonometries, the load-bearing structure of the central body. The study focuses primarily on the central body of the building, which supports the large dome, and unmasks its highly complicated internal structure.